Falcons sign Denver kicker Jason Elam. Thanks for the great years, Jason. You did the Broncs well. ✓
Starbucks to get the Clover single-cup brewer … after acquiring the manufacturer. This is good news for me since I’ve been addicted to the coffee brewed by the Clover since Mr. Warren introduced me to it last month, and there are at least three Starbucks locations between my house and where I work — two of which are drive-thrus. ✓
Gruber has named Roger L. Kay the “Jackass of the Week” for his “Apple’s Icarus Effect” article — but I’m thinking the award is too friendly. (If you’re in a good mood, you might want to skip this one.) ✓
I’ve been waiting to post a link to “RIP Twitter (2007-2007)”, which was originally written a year ago yesterday.
I’m calling it now: Twitter will flame-out before the end of 2007, in one of the most awe-inspiring lessons in irrational exuberance we’ve seen since the turn of the millennium.
Since I don’t have Twitter’s growth stats for 2007, I’ll trust that its existence in 2008 is evidence enough to prove the prediction wrong. ✓
Lab Tick allows you to override Mac OS’s automatic toggle of the keyboard backlight, and manually set the brightness. It’s Leopard compatible, but is still in beta and hasn’t been updated since December.
This addresses an issue I didn’t know existed. I’ve never been able to manually adjust the backlighting on my PowerBook keyboard, but apparently MacBook Pro users have been able to do this until the most recent OS update. ✓
Shawn Blanc picked up a new (Penryn) MacBook Pro a few days after I did, and has written (another) exhaustive review. It’s great! His perspective is from a 12-inch PowerBook owner, so he touches on things like the keyboard backlighting, magsafe power adapter and higher-density screen. He also covers the new features, like the multi-touch trackpad. I learned a thing or two; about the “speed tap” Caps Lock and “safe” sleep mode (which I have now disabled, thank you, Shawn).
If you’re still using an older PowerBook or first-generation MacBook Pro, and are considering upgrading to the new Penryn model, this is a must-read. ✓
The Official EE 2.0 Preview Thread on the EllisLab forums is hot with conversation — both positive and negative — about the new Control Panel design. ✓
The March 2008 issue of Wired magazine has a feature article titled, “Free! Why $0.00 Is the Future of Business”. It’s worth the read if you distribute anything online. More on this, and how we (The City Church) are taking strides to embrace “free” later. ✓
EllisLab previewed version 2.0 of ExpressionEngine today at SXSW. The biggest news is that EE is now built entirely on top of CodeIgniter. This should enable even more flexibility for developers needing custom solutions. Check out the “official” screenshots from Derek Allard.
Update: The new Control Panel design was done by the veritable Veerle Pieters. It looks like a lot of attention was paid to the publish form — but I wonder if it was at the cost of the tabular data on the edit screen. To me, this where the EE backend could use some help. I pose the question again: who wants to develop (create content) in a web browser?
Update 2: I ask [that question] based on the assumption that most people are creating content (writing blog entries, developing templates, etc.) outside the Control Panel anyway. I question the need to spend resources bolstering the “create” tools in the Control Panel as opposed to the “edit” or “organize” tools. ✓
If you’re not already convinced airport security is completely busted, check out this story from Mike Davidson. The short-end of it is he missed his already-rescheduled flight because of two incompetent TSA agents, yet was accounted for as being on board — which subsequently almost caused the flight to be re-routed and grounded. ✓
Keegan was robbed, and he’s asking for money to replace his digital camera. I’ll be donating as soon as I can. ✓
David Watanabe on his motivation to make NewsFire free:
Call it an experiment to draw people into the fold. Call it temporary insanity. Call it good will. Call it stupidity. I’m never really sure what my motivations are, but this one feels right in my gut. I hope you like it. I sure hope I don’t regret this.
I hope he doesn’t regret it either. Though I no longer use NewsFire as my RSS reader, I miss its speed and light weight. I’ve switched back to using NewsFire as my default RSS reader and love its speed and light weight. Give it a try and see what I mean. ✓